One of the main attractions in Palawan and probably in the Philippines is the Taut Batu Tribe or the cave dwelling people. They inhabit the Singnapan basin located in Barangay Ransang, Municipality of Rizal, Palawan. The basin, a crater-like structure found on the western side of the volcanic Mount Mantalingahan -the highest peak in the island, is in reality a huge sinkhole some 176 hectares. During the geologic periods, the area was originally a plateau, which was eroded into a basin by the river through chemical and physical action. The river then worked itself underground to form an exit on the western flank of the basin, emerging on to the coast of Palawan as the Sumurum River.

   On September of 1977, then President and Prime Minister Ferdinand E. Marcos initiated a multi-disciplinary research project on the Taut Batu tribe, a sub-group of the Palaw’an inhabiting the Southwestern portion of the island of Palawan. The project was jointly undertaken by the National Museum of the Philippines, under Director Godofredo L. Alcasid and the Presidential Assistant on National Minorities (PANAMIN), under Minister Manuel Elizalde, Jr. And so, on May 1978, the President together with the first lady, Imelda R. Marcos, and their daughter Irene, brought to the attention of the world a group of people whose unique way of life was to give an insight into Philippine prehistory and culture.

   You may say that they were just another typical natives living in a remote area, but the significant finding on the walls and ceiling of one of the caves, Ugpay, were Petroglyphs or drawings made of charcoal covering over 15 meters of space. Pieces of stone tools that belong to the typology of Paleolithic cultures like flake and cobble tools have also been found in archaeological contexts. These petroglyphs share the same characteristics as what they’ve found in the rock shelter of Angono, Province of Rizal and the Batu Putih caves of South Sarawak, Borneo. The fact that the Tau’t Batu still practice making these charcoal drawing using a style that goes back to the period before the birth of Christ and seemed to be similar to others in southeast Asia opens up avenues of speculation about a widespread culture complex. The significance to Philippine art and ritual, if not prehistory, of the Tau’t Batu petroglyph is such that it has been declared by then President Marcos as one of the National Treasures of this country. Equally treasured are the people themselves for to protect them an area of over 23,000 hectares that has been declared on June 2, 1978 by Proclamation No. 1743 as a “Reservation Area for Anthropological and Archaeological studies” and also to enable the tribe to live a life of their own choice and their own pace of change.

   Singnapan basin is a mere fourteen kilometers inland from Ransang proper, a Barangay located 223 kilometers south of Palawan. On the eastern side of the basin is a gentle slope covered largely by forests. The western side is an exposure of mature-limestone cliffs. And on these limestone faces are found caves and rock shelters that serves as home for enumerable bats and swiftlets and during the height of the rainy season, the Tau’t Batu.


   The cycle of life begins when the rains are over and the Tau’t Batu emerges from the caves to live in the open. The first few months of the year constitute the agricultural phase of the annual cycle. They planted in their fields rice, corn and root crops. When the crops are growing, the perimeters of the fields were full of various animal traps. Trapping thus becomes a major preoccupation until the harvests of crops. When rainy season begins, the people began their exodus to the caves with their gathered foods, to weather out the rest of the rainy season and to escape the inevitable flooding of the basin floor during the last part of the year. Cave living changes the previous pattern of life.


   By this time of the year, with the Tau’t Batu now sheltered in the caves are bats and various species of swiftlets that nest in the ceiling of the caves. To capture them as a major source of protein, aside from the snails that abound among the moist rocks, the Tau’t Batu close off a number of corridors with branches of trees leaving a single channel open where the hunters stand and wait with huge swats woven from palm fronds/bamboo poles intertwined with thorns of rattan to knock down birds and to entangle bat wings. The Tau’t Batu utilizes the area that is near in the mouth of the cave where there is sunlight, airy and where the smoke will easily dissipate from their fireplaces. The basic unit of architecture is the Da’tag, a sleeping platform incorporated with a fireplace.


   The entire population of the Tau’t Batu as of July 2005 is 286 individuals from 66 households. The Tau’t Batu are egalitarian, but incipient ranking and leadership development are discernable. More than the geographical boundaries are the social barriers that they have placed in their relationships with others. Transactions across these ethnic boundaries are limited almost only to economic ones. The cave dwellings they chose are those high in sheer cliffs that are dangerous to scale. Like children, they shy away from unfamiliar faces yet warm up when an intimacy is built.